


where dead men lose their bones

by crownlessliestheking



Series: Spooky Elf Jail [3]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Corruption, Eldritch, F/M, Horror Elves, Lovecraftian Influences, Psychological Horror, Slow Descent into Sticky Traps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: The woods of Nan Elmoth are dark and drear, and not even the thralls of the Iron Crown dare tread there.
Relationships: Aredhel/Eöl (Tolkien)
Series: Spooky Elf Jail [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981931
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	where dead men lose their bones

**Author's Note:**

> How could I have spooky elves and forget Eöl, the OG spook elf?
> 
> Broken up into chapters so I could have the satisfaction of posting something on Halloween. Tags &warnings will be updated to suit the others as they come. If they come. I'm pretty stuck on a few things.

_"There is only me. There is only my way. There is only the forest, and there is only surrender_."

-Over the Garden Wall

* * *

# i.

The woods of Nan Elmoth are dark and drear, and not even the thralls of the Iron Crown dare tread there.

He has been of these woods and dwelt within them for near an Age now; his days in the court of his silver-haired cousin and his tame goddess of a wife are near forgotten. Doriath as it had been was fell and fey, wild and dangerous in turn, and the woods thrummed with a darkness that he well-remembered, for he had been born in them. Once, he thought he would die within them.

But then the goddess came and her walls encircled them all, and the forest was made to heel, to bow to her wishes so that her spawn could dance merry without fear of the foul beasts that roamed abroad.

And he had chafed at the enclosing, something inside him snarling and demanding more, a pacing, growling beast that rattled the chains he tried to keep on it, tearing at them and at him until he left. He did not know what he was looking for.

Not until he found it, wandering far from his kinsman’s halls, to where the woods were wildling, thick brambles winding around his ankles to tear at them, the great black trunks of the trees as thick as stone pillars and near as sturdy. He walked, until the tapestry of the leaves blocked the hateful light of the newfound Sun that now swallowed the stars that he had ever-loved, cold-white in their radiance, turning skin to alabaster and limning the dark world in the twilight that he favored.

He made his halls there, and yet something was missing, but he knew only that he needed to wait.

He did not have visitors, but never had he craved the company of others, and so he did not know the word for loneliness. Instead, he learned to listen to the wood, learned to let leaf and stone and even shadow tell him what lay beyond the sight of his own eyes. He learned to leave carrion for the black, cawing birds that shrieked and wheeled in the air, their cries loud and piercing. He learned not to kill them, for their memory was long and their beaks sharp. He learned, even, to kill for them, scattering steaming viscera onto dead leaves, and watching them shriek and fight over the offal as he licked the blood from his fingers and went about his butchery.

Eöl plants no seeds; he has little love of things that grow, and the forest provides for him better than he might have thought. Pale mushrooms sprout from between the roots of trees like dead men’s fingers; rich, dark red fruit blossoms and hangs low from the boughs, inviting. The juice is tart to the point of bitter, and sears the back of his throat, and leaves him reeling for a night afterwards. He thinks it sweeter and more intoxicating than any wine his cousins brewed under Melian’s witchery in Doriath. He eats the fruit and he wanders through the trees, until he comes to a clearing. He collapses and watches the silver stars wheel senseless patterns in the heavens, his eyes wide and heavy all at once, his body too small for his senses. He can feel the life-pulse of the wood beating underneath him, the rustle of leaves as it breathes, the writhing of worms through the flesh of rotting corpses, the screams of a deer just being born, the snap of sharp teeth over bone and antler piercing flesh.

(And beneath that, there is more, a Whisper that soothes over the edges of his mind and tells him that he is home.)

And the next day, still reeling with a headache pounding in the back of his skull and his legs unsteady beneath him, he walks. His skin is still too tight for his body, his eyes skittering past branches and refusing to see properly. He’s looking for something, but he doesn’t know what. The unease rises, crests like a wave.

The wood opens itself up before him, and hidden paths unfurl beneath the silent fall of his feet. Rotted leaves cling to the soles of his boots and turn to more muck, adding to the crust of oozing mud that he sinks ankle deep into with each step. It is black and slick, and cold as ice. The stench of death grows, fills his nose until he doesn’t remember smelling anything other than it, building worse and worse. When he tries to breathe through his mouth, he only tastes it, vile and putrid on his tongue, coating it and refusing to leave. He gags, and bile rises searing acid into the back of his throat.

He keeps walking. He doesn’t know that he has much of a choice.

(The Whisper is still there, but more insistent, more sweetly persuasive than it had been last night. Now in the dun light of what only Nan Elmoth calls day, stripped of anything but this shambling, stumbling lucidity, he can do nothing but listen. He would chafe, if it were anything else. But why should he? This is his home, is it not? It is _his_ , and it is his right. And so he listens. And so he walks, deeper into the sticking, stinking mud, feeling it leak and ooze into his boots, soak through his socks. It finds its way under his fingernails and crusts there with the blood of his latest kill.)

The forest path is barely that; it is only defined by the occasional gleam of white at its border, and the trees that crowd in close around it. He feels protected, safe. He feels their branches snag and pull at his hair, and it does not even hurt when strands are left behind with scalp still clinging to it. The blood leaks hot down his neck, soaks into his shirt.

There are things in these woods. He is being watched. Let them watch him. ~~He is called. This is his home, he is summoned and summoning, he is here for his purpose. He wants it as he has never wanted anything before.~~

They are hungry and hollow. They are no fell beasts of Morgoth’s, the Black Foe whose hand dares to try to close around Nan Elmoth. Not here, never here. Not his home. Crows will pluck the eyes from any orcs who dare stray here, the red-mouthed wild wolves will devour the rest. And Eöl himself will carve their hearts out for the presumption, and offer it to his forest. Only their bones will remain, and even then, not for long. Meat does not last here.

Something snaps under his feet, small and brittle. He does not look, only leaves the caved-in skull of some lost creature behind him.

All the bones here are picked clean. The maggots are as big as his thumb, burrowing blindly through the mud to reach him. They cannot hurt him, though. The buzz of the flies grows louder, anticipatory. Everything here is waiting to be fed. Waiting to find their next meal.

He does not think about what corpseflesh they may find.

He goes deeper into the wood- into his wood- and then he finds it.

It is-

It-

His mind skitters around it like spiders shying from a boot, scattering. It _is_ , and that is all he can say.

It is darkness, twisting in on itself. It is an eye that sees through him as if he’s nothing, its contempt endless. It is the prickle at the back of his neck, the knowledge that he’s being watched. It is a trap unlike any other, worse than that Maia witch’s magics, worse than the enchantments she’d spoken before his cousin to draw him under her spell. It is the juice of those fruits gone overripe, sickly sweet and bursting in his mouth, the seeds grainy and sticking in his teeth and gums, the sore burn of his mouth after he’s torn through their furred skin. It is the stick of sword in bone, not a clean cut, but the desperate violence of slash after slash, gore and sinew sticking to a jagged, rusty blade.

~~It disgusts him.~~

~~It enthralls him.~~

~~He cannot move. He does not want to move.~~

It wants him.

It is his woods made flesh and horror and all he can do is bow before it and bare his neck as it approaches.

The flies buzz louder, and a noise builds between his ears, a pressure of demand-

No, a truth spoken.

No, a question asked. But there is only one answer- there only ever has been one answer, since he saw the dark boughs of the trees, since he ate of the fruit and let animals bleed out to nourish the roots.

Yes, he says, except it comes out as a scream.

And then it is upon him, around him, and he is subsumed, he is nothing, Eöl no more but splintered down and flayed of everything weak and yearning, flayed of the faint glimmer of belief in fair Valmar for it is foul and tainted and only brought misery to the land it ignored. He is stripped of everything he hates of himself, a vessel scrubbed clean and hands to be put to new purpose, and he welcomes it.

And then there is only darkness, and pain so bright a star it is near blinding. 

He does not know how long he lies there, but when he finally stirs, when he has shrunk back down into himself, registered that he has a self, it is full night and a new moon. He is hungry. The leaves beneath him are wet and smell of rot. He forces himself to sit up in a single, jerky motion, and the clearing is devoid of anything else. There is nothing but him, no watching eyes, no unease, nothing of

(a roiling blackness, a maw that opens wide to devour, needlefingers pinning him in place and slicing him open from sternum to groin to pierce his insides and pluck out that which it deems useless, hands prying his ribcage open to make room for itself as he howls)

what he had seen last daylight. 

He watches his fingers under the stars and thinks, _yes. This is it. This is me, everything I was meant to be._ Something thrums in his breastbone, and in the distant wood, the footsteps of some prowling thing cease.


End file.
